Parameter --lib-path sets the path to Ace Stream libraries. By default the path /usr/share/acestream is used. If the release version of the engine is already installed on the server, it will be launched without specifying the parameter --lib-path. To know for sure which version was launched, you can check the version from command line. For example, if version 2.1.6 is already installed, the result without specifying --lib-path will be following:

Launch on CentOS

On CentOS there are some features of the engine launch.

Standard library openssl on CentOS do not support some necessary for the engine functions. In this regard, together with the engine for CentOS there is a recompiled library openssl and module python-m2crypto, which is superstructure over openssl. These libraries are in the folder usr in archieve with the engine. To use them you have to copy folders "lib64" and "local" from the folder "usr" into appropriate folders in /usr. If the engine of the previous version is installed on the server, these libraries are in your system and there is no need to copy them.

To launch the engine under CentOS script start.sh is used instead of acestreamengine in the folder with the engine.

This script sets an environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/ssl/lib before the engine launch, so the recompiled version of the library openssl was used.

Also this script automatically passes the path to libraries to the engine through the parameter --lib-path, so there is no need to specify it additionally.

New parameters for configuration of support nodes infrastructure

--private-node (0 or 1) - if you specify 1, the node will be private (by default: 0)

--download-from (string) - add the address to a list of nodes from which this node is allowed to receive data. The address must be specified in a format ipv4_address:port. This parameter may occur more than once.

--upload-to (string) - add the address to the list of nodes to which this node is allowed to give data. The address must be specified in a format ipv4_address:port. This parameter may occur more than once.

--monitor-node-ip (string) - ipv4 address of monitoring-server

New parameters to launch the source

--metatracker (string) - add the address of metatracker to the transport file

These parameters are not used any more

--stream-source (is changed to --stream-source-node)

--stream-node (is changed to --stream-support-node)

--add-authorized-peers (list of authorized peers is not added to transport file any more)

--private-source (is changed to --private-node)

--support-node

--source-node

--allow-source-download

--allow-support-download

--allow-peers-download

New functional

Setting up support nodes

In a new version it is necessary to explicitly specify to support nodes from which nodes they have to download data. For this, parameter --download-from is used. A list of nodes, from which downloading is allowed, can be changed without restarting support node through node's web-interface (look below). For example, if node-source is launched by address 192.168.1.2:7764 and we want to launch support node which loads data only from the source, a command to launch support node will be following:

Private nodes

Private node gives data only to nodes that explicitly are added to its list of allowed. In order to make a node private you have to launch it with a parameter --private-node 1. To add the address to the list of allowed to upload a parameter --upload-to is used. Both, node-source and support node, can be private. Private node repulses incoming connections from all addresses except specified by parameters --download-from, --upload-to and --monitor-node-ip. To filter only ip-address is used (port is not used). Parameter --monitor-node-ip sets ip-address of the monitoring server and is used in case if there is a need to provide monitoring of the private node (without specifying this parameter private node will repulse all requests from the monitoring server).

Example of launching the private source which will give data only to support node from the previous example:

Start nodes

Start node is intended to provide the fastest possible start of a broadcast from users' side.

A special feature of the start node is a constant rotation of connections. When new incoming connections are received the start node terminates connections to nodes which were connected earlier and have already downloaded certain amount of data.

To launch the engine in the start node mode parameter --stream-startup-node is used.

Node's web-interface

Every node has web-interface to view current status, as well as options to change some of the parameters "on the fly" (without restarting the node).

Web-interface works on the main port of the node (specified by parameter --port).

By default web-interface is available only from the same machine, from which the node was launched.
To allow remote access, you have to launch the node with option --service-remote-access.
Also you can set a password for web-interface to prevent unauthorized access, using option --service-access-token